The "Critiques and Addresses" gathered together in this volume, likethe "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," published three years ago,deal chiefly with educational, scientific, and philosophical subjects;and, in fact, indicate the high-water mark of the various tides ofoccupation by which I have been carried along since the beginning ofthe year 1870.

In the end of that year, a confidence in my powers of work, which,unfortunately, has not been justified by events, led me to allowmyself to be brought forward as a candidate for a seat on the LondonSchool Board. Thanks to the energy of my supporters I was elected, andtook my share in the work of that body during the critical first yearof its existence. Then my health gave way, and I was obliged to resignmy place among colleagues whose large practical knowledge of thebusiness of primary education, and whose self-sacrificing zeal in thedischarge of the onerous and thankless duties thrown upon them bythe Legislature, made it a pleasure to work with them, even though myposition was usually that of a member of the minority.

I mention these circumstances in order to account for (I had almostsaid to apologize for) the existence of the two papers which headthe present series, and which are more or less political, both in thelower and in the higher senses of that word.

The question of the expediency of any form of State Education is, infact, a question of those higher politics which lie above the regionin which Tories, Whigs, and Radicals "delight to bark and bite." Indiscussing it in my address on "Administrative Nihilism," I foundmyself, to my profound regret, led to diverge very widely (though evenmore perhaps in seeming than in reality) from the opinions of a man ofgenius to whom I am bound by the twofold tie of the respect due to aprofound philosopher and the affection given to a very old friend. Buthad I no other means of knowing the fact, the kindly geniality of Mr.Herbert Spencer's reply[1] assures me that the tie to which I referwill bear a much heavier strain than I have put, or ever intend toput, upon it, and I rather rejoice that I have been the means ofcalling forth so vigorous a piece of argumentative writing. Nor isthis disinterested joy at an attack upon myself diminished by thecircumstance, that, in all humility, but in all sincerity, I think itmay be repulsed.

Mr. Spencer complains that I have first misinterpreted, and thenmiscalled, the doctrine of which he is so able an expositor. It wouldgrieve me very much if I were really open to this charge. But what arethe facts? I define this doctrine as follows:--

"Those who hold these views support them by two lines of argument. They enforce them deductively by arguing from an assumed axiom, that the State has no right to do anything but protect its subjects from aggression. The State is simply a policeman, and its duty, neither more nor less than to prevent robbery and murder and enforce contracts. It is not to promote good, nor even to do anything to prevent evil, except by the enforcement of penalties upon those who have been guilty of obvious and tangible assaults upon purse or person. And, according to this view, the proper form of government is neither a monarchy, an aristocracy, nor a democracy, but an _astynomocracy_, or police government. On the other hand, these views are supported _a posteriori_ by an induction from observation, which professes to show that whatever is done by a Government beyond these negative limits, is not only sure to be done badly, but to be done much worse than private enterprise would have done the same thing."

I was filled with surprised regret when I learned from the conclusionof the article on "Specialized Administration," that this statement isheld by Mr. Spencer to be a, misinterpretation of his views. PerhapsI ought to be still more sorry to be obliged to declare myself, evennow, unable to discover where my misinterpretation lies, or in whatrespect my presentation of Mr. Spencer's views differs from his ownmost recent version of them. As the passage cited above shows. I havecarefully defined the sense in which I use the terms which I employ,and, therefore, I am not greatly concerned to defend the abstractappropriateness of the terms themselves. And when Mr. Spencermaintains the only proper functions of Government to be those whichare comprehensible under the description of "Negatively regulativecontrol," I may suggest that the difference between such "NegativeAdministration" and "Administrative Nihilism," in the sense defined byme, is not easily discernible.

Having, as I hope, relieved myself from the suspicion of havingmisunderstood or misrepresented Mr. Spencer's views, I might, if Icould forget that I am writing a preface, proceed to the discussionof the parallel which he elaborates, with much knowledge and power,between the physiological and the social organisms. But this is notthe place for a controversy involving so many technicalities, andI content myself with one remark, namely, that the whole course ofmodern physiological discovery tends to show, with more and moreclearness, that the vascular system, or apparatus for distributingcommodities in the animal organism, is eminently under the control ofthe cerebro-spinal nervous centres--a fact which, unless I am againmistaken, is contrary to one of Mr. Spencer's fundamental assumptions.In the animal organism, Government does meddle with trade, and evengoes so far as to tamper a good deal with the currency.

In the same number of the _Fortnightly Review_ as that which containsMr. Spencer's essay, Miss Helen Taylor assails me--though, I am boundto admit, more in sorrow than in anger--for what she terms, my"New Attack on Toleration." It is I, this time, who may complain ofmisinterpretation, if the greater part of Miss Taylor's article(with which I entirely sympathise) is supposed to be applicable tomy "intolerance." Let us have full-toleration, by all means, uponall questions in which there is room for doubt, or which cannot bedistinctly proved to affect the welfare of mankind. But when MissTaylor has shown what basis exists for criminal legislation, exceptthe clear right of mankind not to tolerate that which is demonstrablycontrary to the welfare of society, I will admit that suchdemonstration ought only to be believed in by the "curates andold women" to whom she refers. Recent events have not weakened theconviction I expressed in a much-abused speech at the London SchoolBoard, that Ultramontanism is demonstrably the enemy of society; andmust be met with resistance, merely passive if possible, but active ifnecessary, by "the whole power of the State."

Next in order, it seems proper that I should briefly refer to myfriend Mr. Mivart's onslaught upon my criticism of Mr. Darwin'scritics, himself among the number, which will be found in thisvolume. In "Evolution and its Consequences"[1] I am accused ofmisrepresentation, misquotation, misunderstanding, and numerous othernegative and positive literary and scientific sins; and much subtleingenuity is expended by Mr. Mivart in attempting to extricate himselffrom the position in which my exposition of the real opinions ofFather Suarez has placed him. So much more, in fact, has Mr. Mivart'singenuity impressed me than any other feature of his reply, that Ishall take the liberty of re-stating the main issue between us; and,for the present, leaving that issue alone to the judgment of thepublic.

[Footnote 1: _Contemporary Review_, January 1872.]

In his book on the "Genesis of Species" Mr. Mivart, after discussingthe opinions of sundry Catholic writers of authority, among whom heespecially includes St. Augustin, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the JesuitSuarez, proceeds to say: "It is then evident that ancient and mostvenerable theological authorities distinctly assert _derivative_creation, and thus their teachings harmonize with all that modernscience can possibly require."[1] By the "derivative creation" oforganic forms, Mr. Mivart understands, "that God created them byconferring on the material world the power to evolve them undersuitable conditions."

On the contrary, I proved by evidence, which Mr. Mivart does notventure to impugn, that Suarez, in his "Tractatus de Opere sexDierum," expressly rejects St. Augustin's and St. Thomas' views; thathe vehemently advocates the literal interpretation of the account ofthe creation given in the Book of Genesis; and that he treats withutter scorn the notion that the Almighty could have used the languageof that Book, unless He meant it to be taken literally.

Mr. Mivart, therefore, either has read Suarez and has totallymisrepresented him--a hypothesis which, I hope I need hardly say, I donot for a moment entertain: or, he has got his information at secondhand, and has himself been deceived. But in that case, it is surelyan imprudence on his part, to reproach me with having "read Suarez _adhoc_, and evidently without the guidance of anyone familiar withthat author." No doubt, in the matter of guidance, Mr. Mivart has theadvantage of me. Nevertheless, the guides who supplied him with hisreferences to Suarez' "Metaphysica," while they left him in ignoranceof the existence of the "Tractatus," are guides with whose servicesit might be better to dispense; leaders who wilfully shut their eyes,being even more liable to lodge one in a ditch, than blind leaders.

At the time when the essay on "Methods and Results of Ethnology" waswritten, I had not met with a passage in Professor Max Mueller's "LastResults of Turanian Researches"[1] which shows so appositely, thatthe profoundest study of philology leads to conclusions respecting therelation of Ethnology with Philology, similar to those at which I hadarrived in approaching the question from the Anatomist's side, that Icannot refrain from quoting it:

[Footnote 1: LONDON, _April_ 1873.]

"Nor should we, in our phonological studies, either expect or desire more than general hints from physical ethnology. The proper and rational connection between the two sciences is that of mutual advice and suggestion, but nothing more. Much of the confusion of terms and indistinctness of principles, both in Ethnology and Phonology, are due to the combined study of these heterogeneous sciences. Ethnological race and phonological race are not commensurate, except in ante-historical times, or perhaps at the very dawn of history. With the migration of tribes, their wars, their colonies, their conquests and alliances, which, if we may judge from their effects, must have been much more violent in the ethnic, than even in the political, period of history, it is impossible to imagine that race and language should continue to run parallel. The physiologist should pursue his own science unconcerned about language."

It is further desirable to remark that the statements in this Essayrespecting the forms of Native American crania need rectification. Onthis point, I refer the reader who is interested in the subject tomy paper "On the Form of the Cranium among the Patagonians and theFuegians" published in the _Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_ for1868.

If the problem discussed in my address to the British Associationin 1870 has not yet received its solution, it is not because thechampions of Abiogenesis have been idle, or wanting in confidence. Butevery new assertion on their side has been met by a counter assertion;and though the public may have been led to believe that so much noisemust indicate rapid progress, one way or the other, an impartialcritic will admit, with sorrow, that the question has been "markingtime" rather than marching. In mere sound, these two processes are notso very different.

CONTENTS.

I.

ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. (An Address delivered to the Members ofthe Midland Institute, on the 9th of October, 1871, and subsequentlypublished in the _Fortnightly Review_)

II.

THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY DO. (The_Contemporary Review_, 1870)

III.

ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. (An Address to the Students of the Faculty ofMedicine in University College, London, 1870)

IV.

YEAST. (The _Contemporary Review_, 1871)

V.

ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. (A Lecture delivered before the Members ofthe Bradford Philosophical Institution, and subsequently published inthe _Contemporary Review_)

VI.

ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. (_Good Words_, 1870)

VII.

ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. (The _Fortnightly Review_,1865)

VIII.

ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. (The _Contemporary Review_,1871)

IX.

PALAEONTOLOGY AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. (The Presidential Addressto the Geological Society, 1870)

X.

MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. (The _Contemporary Review_, 1871)

XI.

THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS. (A Review of Haeckel's "NatuerlicheSchoepfungs-Geschichte." The _Academy_, 1869)

XII.

BISHOP BERKELEY ON THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION. _(Macmillan'sMagazine_, 1871)

CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES.

I.

ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM.

(AN ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MIDLAND INSTITUTE, OCTOBER 9TH,1871.)

To me, and, as I trust, to the great majority of those whom I address,the great attempt to educate the people of England which has just beenset afoot, is one of the most satisfactory and hopeful events in ourmodern history. But it is impossible, even if it were desirable,to shut our eyes to the fact, that there is a minority, notinconsiderable in numbers, nor deficient in supporters of weight andauthority, in whose judgment all this legislation is a step in thewrong direction, false in principle, and consequently sure to produceevil in practice.

The arguments employed by these objectors are of two kinds. The firstis what I will venture to term the caste argument; for, if logicallycarried out, it would end in the separation of the people of thiscountry into castes, as permanent and as sharply defined, if not asnumerous, as those of India. It is maintained that the whole fabricof society will be destroyed if the poor, as well as the rich, areeducated; that anything like sound and good education will only makethem discontented with their station and raise hopes which, in thegreat majority of cases, will be bitterly disappointed. It is said:There must be hewers of wood and drawers of water, scavengers andcoalheavers, day labourers and domestic servants, or the work ofsociety will come to a standstill. But, if you educate and refineeverybody, nobody will be content to assume these functions, and allthe world will want to be gentlemen and ladies.

One hears this argument most frequently from the representatives ofthe well-to-do middle class; and, coming from them, it strikes me aspeculiarly inconsistent, as the one thing they admire, strive after,and advise their own children to do, is to get on in the world, and,if possible, rise out of the class in which they were born into thatabove them. Society needs grocers and merchants as much as it needscoalheavers; but if a merchant accumulates wealth and works his way toa baronetcy, or if the son of a greengrocer becomes a lord chancellor,or an archbishop, or, as a successful soldier, wins a peerage, all theworld admires them; and looks with pride upon the social system whichrenders such achievements possible. Nobody suggests that there isanything wrong in _their_ being discontented with _their_ station; orthat, in _their_ cases society suffers by men of ability reaching thepositions for which nature has fitted them.

But there are better replies than those of the _tu quoque_ sort to thecaste argument. In the first place, it is not true that education,as such, unfits men for rough and laborious, or even disgusting,occupations. The life of a sailor is rougher and harder than that ofnine landsmen out of ten, and yet, as every ship's captain knows, nosailor was ever the worse for possessing a trained intelligence. Thelife of a medical practitioner, especially in the country, is harderand more laborious than that of most artisans, and he is constantlyobliged to do things which, in point of pleasantness, cannot be rankedabove scavengering--yet he always ought to be, and he frequently is,a highly educated man. In the second place, though it may be grantedthat the words of the catechism, which require a man to do his duty inthe station to which it has pleased God to call him, give an admirabledefinition of our obligation to ourselves and to society; yet thequestion remains, how is any given person to find out what is theparticular station to which it has pleased God to call him? A new-borninfant does not come into the world labelled scavenger, shopkeeper,bishop, or duke. One mass of red pulp is just like another to alloutward appearance. And it is only by finding out what his facultiesare good for, and seeking, not for the sake of gratifying a paltryvanity, but as the highest duty to himself and to his fellow-men,to put himself into the position in which they can attain their fulldevelopment, that the man discovers his true station. That which is tobe lamented, I fancy, is not that society should do its utmost to helpcapacity to ascend from the lower strata to the higher, but that ithas no machinery by which to facilitate the descent of incapacity fromthe higher strata to the lower. In that noble romance, the "Republic"(which is now, thanks to the Master of Balliol, as intelligible tous all, as if it had been written in our mother tongue), Plato makesSocrates say that he should like to inculcate upon the citizens of hisideal state just one "royal lie."

"'Citizens,' we shall say to them in our tale--'You are brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you have the power of command, and these he has composed of gold, wherefore also they have the greatest honour; others of silver, to be auxiliaries; others again, who are to be husbandmen and craftsmen, he has made of brass and iron; and the species will generally be preserved in the children. But as you are of the same original family, a golden parent will sometimes have a silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims to the rulers, as a first principle, that before all they should watch over their offspring, and see what elements mingle with their nature; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards his child because he has to descend in the scale and become a husbandman or artisan; just as there may be others sprung from the artisan class, who are raised to honour, and become guardians and auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man of brass or iron guards the State, it will then be destroyed.'"[1]

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is powerless againsttruth; and the lapse of more than two thousand years has not weakenedthe force of these wise words. Nor is it necessary that, as Platosuggests, society should provide functionaries expressly charged withthe performance of the difficult duty of picking out the men of brassfrom those of silver and gold. Educate, and the latter will certainlyrise to the top; remove all those artificial props by which the brassand iron folk are kept at the top, and, by a law as sure as that ofgravitation, they will gradually sink to the bottom. We have allknown noble lords who would have been coachmen, or gamekeepers, orbilliard-markers, if they had not been kept afloat by our socialcorks; we have all known men among the lowest ranks, of whom everyonehas said, "What might not that man have become, if he had only had alittle education?"

And who that attends, even in the most superficial way, to theconditions upon which the stability of modern society--and especiallyof a society like ours, in which recent legislation has placedsovereign authority in the hands of the masses, whenever they areunited enough to wield their power--can doubt that every man of highnatural ability, who is both ignorant and miserable, is as great adanger to society as a rocket without a stick is to the peoplewho fire it? Misery is a match that never goes out; genius, as anexplosive power, beats gunpowder hollow; and if knowledge, whichshould give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not smallthat the rocket will simply run a-muck among friends and foes. Whatgives force to the socialistic movement which is now stirringEuropean society to its depths, but a determination on the part of thenaturally able men among the proletariat, to put an end, somehow orother, to the misery and degradation in which a large proportion oftheir fellows are steeped? The question, whether the means by whichthey purpose to achieve this end are adequate or not, is at thismoment the most important of all political questions--and it is besidemy present purpose to discuss it. All I desire to point out is, thatif the chance of the controversy being decided calmly and rationally,and not by passion and force, looks miserably small to an impartialbystander, the reason is that not one in ten thousand of those whoconstitute the ultimate court of appeal, by which questions of theutmost difficulty, as well as of the most momentous gravity, will haveto be decided, is prepared by education to comprehend the real natureof the suit brought before their tribunal.

Finally, as to the ladies and gentlemen question, all I can say is,would that every woman-child born into this world were trained to bea lady, and every man-child a gentleman! But then I do not use thosemuch-abused words by way of distinguishing people who wear fineclothes, and live in fine houses, and talk aristocratic slang, fromthose who go about in fustian, and live in back slums, and talk gutterslang. Some inborn plebeian blindness, in fact, prevents me fromunderstanding what advantage the former have over the latter. I havenever even been able to understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlinghamshould be refined and polite, while a rat-killing match in Whitechapelis low; or why "What a lark" should be coarse, when one hears "Howawfully jolly" drop from the most refined lips twenty times in anevening.

Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect, arethe qualities which make a real gentleman, or lady, as distinguishedfrom the veneered article which commonly goes by that name. I by nomeans wish to express any sentimental preference for Lazarus againstDives, but, on the face of the matter, one does not see why thepractice of these virtues should be more difficult in one state oflife than another; and any one who has had a wide experience among allsorts and conditions of men, will, I think, agree with me that theyare as common in the lower ranks of life as in the higher.

Leaving the caste argument aside then, as inconsistent with thepractice of those who employ it, as devoid of any justification intheory, and as utterly mischievous if its logical consequences werecarried out, let us turn to the other class of objectors. To theseopponents, the Education Act is only one of a number of pieces oflegislation to which they object on principle; and they include underlike condemnation the Vaccination Act, the Contagious Diseases Act,and all other sanitary Acts; all attempts on the part of the State toprevent adulteration, or to regulate injurious trades; all legislativeinterference with anything that bears directly or indirectly oncommerce, such as shipping, harbours, railways, roads, cab-fares, andthe carriage of letters; and all attempts to promote the spread ofknowledge by the establishment of teaching bodies, examiningbodies, libraries, or museums, or by the sending out of scientificexpeditions; all endeavours to advance art by the establishment ofschools of design, or picture galleries; or by spending money uponan architectural public building when a brick box would answer thepurpose. According to their views, not a shilling of public money mustbe bestowed upon a public park or pleasure-ground; not sixpence uponthe relief of starvation, or the cure of disease. Those who holdthese views support them by two lines of argument. They enforce themdeductively by arguing from an assumed axiom, that the State has noright to do anything but protect its subjects from aggression. TheState is simply a policeman, and its duty is neither more nor lessthan to prevent robbery and murder and enforce contracts. It is not topromote good, nor even to do anything to prevent evil, except by theenforcement of penalties upon those who have been guilty of obviousand tangible assaults upon purses or persons. And, according tothis view, the proper form of government is neither a monarchy,an aristocracy, nor a democracy, but an _astynomocracy_, orpolice government. On the other hand, these views are supported _aposteriori_, by an induction from observation, which professes to showthat whatever is done by a Government beyond these negative limits, isnot only sure to be done badly, but to be done much worse than privateenterprise would have done the same thing.

I am by no means clear as to the truth of the latter proposition. Itis generally supported by statements which prove clearly enough thatthe State does a great many things very badly. But this is reallybeside the question. The State lives in a glass house; we see what ittries to do, and all its failures, partial or total, are made the mostof. But private enterprise is sheltered under good opaque bricks andmortar. The public rarely knows what it tries to do, and only hearsof failures when they are gross and patent to all the world. Who isto say how private enterprise would come out if it tried its handat State work? Those who have had most experience of joint-stockcompanies and their management, will probably be least inclined tobelieve in the innate superiority of private enterprise over Statemanagement. If continental bureaucracy and centralization be fraughtwith multitudinous evils, surely English beadleocracy and parochialobstruction are not altogether lovely. If it be said that, as a matterof political experience, it is found to be for the best interests,including the healthy and free development, of a people, that theState should restrict itself to what is absolutely necessary, andshould leave to the voluntary efforts of individuals as much asvoluntary effort can be got to do, nothing can be more just. But, onthe other hand, it seems to me that nothing can be less justifiablethan the dogmatic assertion that State interference, beyond the limitsof home and foreign police, must, under all circumstances, do harm.

Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that we accept theproposition that the functions of the State may be properly summed upin the one great negative commandment,--"Thou shalt not allow any manto interfere with the liberty of any other man,"--I am unable to seethat the logical consequence is any such restriction of the power ofGovernment, as its supporters imply. If my next-door neighbourchooses to have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonousatmosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhus and diphtheria, herestricts my just freedom to live just as much as if he went aboutwith a pistol, threatening my life; if he is to be allowed to lethis children go unvaccinated, he might as well be allowed to leavestrychnine lozenges about in the way of mine; and if he brings them upuntaught and untrained, to earn their living, he is doing his bestto restrict my freedom, by increasing the burden of taxation for thesupport of gaols and workhouses, which I have to pay.

The higher the state of civilization, the more completely do theactions of one member of the social body influence all the rest, andthe less possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thingwithout interfering, more or less, with the freedom of all hisfellow-citizens. So that, even upon the narrowest view of thefunctions of the State, it must be admitted to have wider powers thanthe advocates of the police theory are disposed to admit.

It is urged, I am aware, that if the right of the State to step beyondthe assigned limits is admitted at all, there is no stopping; and thatthe principle which justifies the State in enforcing vaccination oreducation, will also justify it in prescribing my religious belief,or my mode of carrying on my trade or profession; in determining thenumber of courses I have for dinner, or the pattern of my waistcoat.

But surely the answer is obvious that, on similar grounds, the rightof a man to eat when he is hungry might be disputed, because if youonce allow that he may eat at all, there is no stopping him until hegorges himself, and suffers all the ills of a surfeit. In practice,the man leaves off when reason tells him he has had enough; and, ina properly organized State, the Government, being nothing but thecorporate reason of the community, will soon find out when Stateinterference has been carried far enough. And, so far as myacquaintance with those who carry on the business of Government goes,I must say that I find them far less eager to interfere with thepeople, than the people are to be interfered with. And the reason isobvious. The people are keenly sensible of particular evils, and, likea man suffering from pain, desire an immediate remedy. The statesman,on the other hand, is like the physician, who knows that he can stopthe pain at once by an opiate; but who also knows that the opiate maydo more harm than good in the long run. In three cases out of four thewisest thing he can do is to wait, and leave the case to nature. Butin the fourth case, in which the symptoms are unmistakable, and thecause of the disease distinctly known, prompt remedy saves a life.Is the fact that a wise physician will give as little medicine aspossible any argument for his abstaining from giving any at all?

But the argument may be met directly. It may be granted that theState, or corporate authority of the people, might with perfectpropriety order my religion, or my waistcoat, if as good groundscould be assigned for such an order as for the command to educate mychildren. And this leads us to the question which lies at the root ofthe whole discussion--the question, namely, upon what foundationdoes the authority of the State rest, and how are the limits of thatauthority to be determined?

One of the oldest and profoundest of English philosophers, Hobbes ofMalmesbury, writes thus:--

"The office of the sovereign, be it monarch or an assembly, consisteth in the end for which he was entrusted with the sovereign power, namely, the procuration of _the safety_ of the people: to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an account thereof to God, the author of that law, and to none but Him. But by safety, here, is not meant a bare preservation, but also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful industry, without danger or hurt to the commonwealth, shall acquire to himself."

At first sight this may appear to be a statement of the police-theoryof government, pure and simple; but it is not so. For Hobbes goes onto say:--

"And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to individuals, further than their protection from injuries, when they shall complain; but by a general providence contained in public instruction both of doctrine and example; and in the making and executing of good laws to which individual persons may apply their own cases."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Leviathan," Molesworth's ed. p. 322.]

To a witness of the civil war between Charles I. and the Parliament,it is not wonderful that the dissolution of the bonds of society whichis involved in such strife should appear to be "the greatest evil thatcan happen in this life;" and all who have read the "Leviathan" knowto what length Hobbes's anxiety for the preservation of the authorityof the representative of the sovereign power, whatever its shape,leads him. But the justice of his conception of the duties of thesovereign power does not seem to me to be invalidated by his monstrousdoctrines respecting the sacredness of that power.

To Hobbes, who lived during the break-up of the sovereign power bypopular force, society appeared to be threatened by everything whichweakened that power: but, to John Locke, who witnessed the evils whichflow from the attempt of the sovereign power to destroy the rightsof the people by fraud and violence, the danger lay in the otherdirection.

The safety of the representative of the sovereign power itself is toLocke a matter of very small moment, and he contemplates its abolitionwhen it ceases to do its duty, and its replacement by another, as amatter of course. The great champion of the revolution of 1688 coulddo no less. Nor is it otherwise than natural that he should seek tolimit, rather than to enlarge, the powers of the State, though insubstance he entirely agrees with Hobbes's view of its duties:--

"But though men," says he, "when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the Legislature as the good of society shall require; yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse), the power of the society, or legislation, constituted by them can never be supposed to extend further than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one's property by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so, whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies by those laws: and to employ the force of the community at home only in the execution of such laws; or abroad, to prevent or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end than the peace, safety, and public good of the people."[1]

[Footnote 1: Locke's Essay, "Of Civil Government," Sec. 131.]

Just as in the case of Hobbes, so in that of Locke, it may at firstsight appear from this passage that the latter philosopher's views ofthe functions of Government incline to the negative, rather than thepositive, side. But a further study of Locke's writings will atonce remove this misconception. In the famous "Letter concerningToleration," Locke says:--

"The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and _advancing_ their own civil interests.

"Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.

"It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial execution of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in general, and to every one of his subjects in particular, the just possession of those things belonging to this life.

"... The whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only to these civil concernments.... All civil power, right, and dominion, is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting these things."

Elsewhere in the same "Letter," Locke lays down the proposition thatif the magistrate understand washing a child "to be profitable to thecuring or preventing any disease that children are subject unto, andesteem the matter weighty enough to be taken care of by a law, in thatcase he may order it to be done."

Locke seems to differ most widely from Hobbes by his strong advocacyof a certain measure of toleration in religious matters. But thereason why the civil magistrate ought to leave religion alone is,according to Locke, simply this, that "true and saving religionconsists in the inward persuasion of the mind." And since "such is thenature of the understanding that it cannot be compelled to the beliefof anything by outward force," it is absurd to attempt to make menreligious by compulsion. I cannot discover that Locke fathers the petdoctrine of modern Liberalism, that the toleration of error is a goodthing in itself, and to be reckoned among the cardinal virtues; onthe contrary, in this very "Letter on Toleration" he states in theclearest language that "No opinion contrary to human society, or tothose moral rules which are necessary to the preservation of civilsociety, are to be tolerated by the magistrate." And the practicalcorollary which he draws from this proposition is that there ought tobe no toleration for either Papists or Atheists.

After Locke's time the negative view of the functions of Governmentgradually grew in strength, until it obtained systematic and ableexpression in Wilhelm von Humboldt's "Ideen,"[1] the essence of whichis the denial that the State has a right to be anything more thanchief policeman. And, of late years, the belief in the efficacy ofdoing nothing, thus formulated, has acquired considerable popularityfor several reasons. In the first place, men's speculative convictionshave become less and less real; their tolerance is large because theirbelief is small; they know that the State had better leave thingsalone unless it has a clear knowledge about them; and, with reason,they suspect that the knowledge of the governing power may stand nohigher than the very low watermark of their own.

[Footnote 1: An English translation has been published under the titleof "Essay on the Sphere and Duties of Government."]

In the second place, men have become largely absorbed in the mereaccumulation of wealth; and as this is a matter in which the plainestand strongest form of self-interest is intensely concerned, science(in the shape of Political Economy) has readily demonstrated thatself-interest may be safely left to find the best way of attainingits ends. Rapidity and certainty of intercourse between differentcountries, the enormous development of the powers of machinery, andgeneral peace (however interrupted by brief periods of warfare), havechanged the face of commerce as completely as modern artillery haschanged that of war. The merchant found himself as much burdened byancient protective measures as the soldier by his armour--and negativelegislation has been of as much use to the one as the stripping offof breast-plates, greaves, and buff-coat to the other. But because thesoldier is better without his armour it does not exactly follow thatit is desirable that our defenders should strip themselves starknaked; and it is not more apparent why _laissez-faire_--great andbeneficial as it may be in all that relates to the accumulation ofwealth--should be the one great commandment which the State is toobey in all other matters; and especially in those in which thejustification of _laissez-faire_, namely, the keen insight given bythe strong stimulus of direct personal interest, in matters clearlyunderstood, is entirely absent.

Thirdly, to the indifference generated by the absence of fixedbeliefs, and to the confidence in the efficacy of _laissez-faire_,apparently justified by experience of the value of that principle whenapplied to the pursuit of wealth, there must be added that nobler andbetter reason for a profound distrust of legislative interference,which animates Von Humboldt and shines forth in the pages of Mr.Mill's famous Essay on Liberty--I mean the just fear lest the endshould be sacrificed to the means; lest freedom and variety should bedrilled and disciplined out of human life in order that the great millof the State should grind smoothly.

One of the profoundest of living English philosophers, who is at thesame time the most thoroughgoing and consistent of the champions ofastynomocracy, has devoted a very able and ingenious essay[1] to thedrawing out of a comparison between the process by which men haveadvanced from the savage state to the highest civilization, and thatby which an animal passes from the condition of an almost shapelessand structureless germ, to that in which it exhibits a highlycomplicated structure and a corresponding diversity of powers. Mr.Spencer says with great justice--

[Footnote 1: "The Social Organism:" Essays. Second Series.]

"That they gradually increase in mass; that they become, little by little, more complex; that, at the same time, their parts grow more mutually dependent; and that they continue to live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of their units appear and disappear,--are broad peculiarities which bodies politic display, in common with all living bodies, and in which they and living bodies differ from everything else."

In a very striking passage of this essay Mr. Spencer shows with whatsingular closeness a parallel between the development of a nervoussystem, which is the governing power of the body in the series ofanimal organisms, and that of government, in the series of socialorganisms, can be drawn:--

"Strange as the assertion, will be thought," says Mr. Spencer, "our Houses of Parliament discharge in the social economy functions that are, in sundry respects, comparable to those discharged by the cerebral masses in a vertebrate animal.... The cerebrum co-ordinates the countless heterogeneous considerations which affect the present and future welfare of the individual as a whole; and the Legislature co-ordinates the countless heterogeneous considerations which affect the immediate and remote welfare of the whole community. We may describe the office of the brain as that of _averaging_ the interests of life, physical, intellectual, moral, social; and a good brain is one in which the desires answering to their respective interests are so balanced, that the conduct they jointly dictate sacrifice none of them. Similarly we may describe the office of Parliament as that of _averaging_ the interests of the various classes in a community; and a good Parliament is one in which the parties answering to these respective interests are so balanced, that their united legislation concedes to each class as much as consists with the claims of the rest."

All this appears to be very just. But if the resemblances between thebody physiological and the body politic are any indication, not onlyof what the latter is, and how it has become what it is, but of whatit ought to be, and what it is tending to become, I cannot but thinkthat the real force of the analogy is totally opposed to the negativeview of State function.

Suppose that, in accordance with this view, each muscle were tomaintain that the nervous system had no right to interfere with itscontraction, except to prevent it from hindering the contraction ofanother muscle; or each gland, that it had a right to secrete, so longas its secretion interfered with no other; suppose every separate cellleft free to follow its own "interests," and _laissez-faire_ lord ofall, what would become of the body physiological?

The fact is that the sovereign power of the body thinks for thephysiological organism, acts for it, and rules the individualcomponents with a rod of iron. Even the blood-corpuscles can't hold apublic meeting without being accused of "congestion"--and the brain,like other despots whom we have known, calls out at once for theuse of sharp steel against them. As in Hobbes's "Leviathan," therepresentative of the sovereign authority in the living organism,though he derives all his powers from the mass which he rules, isabove the law. The questioning of his authority involves death, orthat partial death which we call paralysis. Hence, if the analogy ofthe body politic with the body physiological counts for anything, itseems to me to be in favour of a much larger amount of governmentalinterference than exists at present, or than I, for one, at all desireto see. But, tempting as the opportunity is, I am not disposed tobuild up any argument in favour of my own case upon this analogy,curious, interesting, and in many respects close, as it is, for ittakes no cognizance of certain profound and essential differencesbetween the physiological and the political bodies.

Much as the notion of a "social contract" has been ridiculed, itnevertheless seems to be clear enough, that all social organizationwhatever depends upon what is substantially a contract, whetherexpressed or implied, between the members of the society. No societyever was, or ever can be, really held together by force. It may seema paradox to say that a slaveholder does not make his slaves workby force, but by agreement. And yet it is true. There is a contractbetween the two which, if it were written out, would run in theseterms:--"I undertake to feed, clothe, house, and not to kill, flog,or otherwise maltreat you, Quashie, if you perform a certain amount ofwork." Quashie, seeing no better terms to be had, accepts the bargain,and goes to work accordingly. A highwayman who garottes me, and thenclears out my pockets, robs me by force in the strict sense of thewords; but if he puts a pistol to my head and demands my money ormy life, and I, preferring the latter, hand over my purse, we havevirtually made a contract, and I perform one of the terms of thatcontract. If, nevertheless, the highwayman subsequently shoots me,everybody will see that, in addition to the crimes of murder andtheft, he has been guilty of a breach of contract.

A despotic Government, therefore, though often a mere combinationof slaveholding and highway robbery, nevertheless implies a contractbetween governor and governed, with voluntary submission on the partof the latter; and _a fortiori_, all other forms of government are inlike case.

Now a contract between any two men implies a restriction of thefreedom of each in certain particulars. The highwayman gives up hisfreedom to shoot me, on condition of my giving up my freedom to doas I like with my money: I give up my freedom to kill Quashie, oncondition of Quashie's giving up his freedom to be idle. And theessence and foundation of every social organization, whether simpleor complex, is the fact that each member of the society voluntarilyrenounces his freedom in certain directions, in return for theadvantages which he expects from association with the other membersof that society. Nor are constitutions, laws, or manners, in ultimateanalysis, anything but so many expressed or implied contracts betweenthe members of a society to do this, or abstain from that.

It appears to me that this feature constitutes the differencebetween the social and the physiological organism. Among the higherphysiological organisms, there is none which is developed by theconjunction of a number of primitively independent existences intoa complex whole. The process of social organization appears to becomparable, not so much to the process of organic development, asto the synthesis of the chemist, by which independent elements aregradually built up into complex aggregations--in which each elementretains an independent individuality, though held in subordination tothe whole. The atoms of carbon and hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, whichenter into a complex molecule, do not lose the powers originallyinherent in them, when they unite to form that molecule, theproperties of which express those forces of the whole aggregationwhich are not neutralized and balanced by one another. Each atom hasgiven up something, in order that the atomic society, or molecule, maysubsist. And as soon as any one or more of the atoms thus associatedresumes the freedom which it has renounced, and follows some externalattraction, the molecule is broken up, and all the peculiar propertieswhich depended upon its constitution vanish.

Every society, great or small, resembles such a complex molecule,in which the atoms are represented by men, possessed of all thosemultifarious attractions and repulsions which are manifested in theirdesires and volitions, the unlimited power of satisfying which, wecall freedom. The social molecule exists in virtue of the renunciationof more or less of this freedom by every individual. It is decomposed,when the attraction of desire leads to the resumption of that freedom,the suppression of which is essential to the existence of the socialmolecule. And the great problem of that social chemistry we callpolitics, is to discover what desires of mankind may be gratified, andwhat must be suppressed, if the highly complex compound, society,is to avoid decomposition. That the gratification of some ofmen's desires shall be renounced is essential to order; that thesatisfaction of others shall be permitted is no less essential toprogress; and the business of the sovereign authority--which is, orought-to be, simply a delegation of the people appointed to act forits good--appears to me to be, not only to enforce the renunciation ofthe anti-social desires, but, wherever it may be necessary, to promotethe satisfaction of those which are conducive to progress.

The great metaphysician, Immanuel Kant, who is at his greatest whenhe discusses questions which are not metaphysical, wrote, nearly acentury ago, a wonderfully instructive essay entitled "A Conception ofUniversal History in relation to Universal Citizenship,"[1] from whichI will borrow a few pregnant sentences:--

[Footnote 1: "Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbuergerlichenAbsicht," 1784. This paper has been translated by De Quincey, andattention has been recently drawn to its "signal merits" by the Editorof the _Fortnightly Review_ in his Essay on Condorcet. (_FortnightlyReview_, No. xxxviii. N.S. pp. 136, 137.)]

"The means of which Nature has availed herself, in order to bring about the development of all the capacities of man, is the antagonism of those capacities to social organization, so far as the latter does in the long run necessitate their definite correlation. By antagonism, I here mean the unsocial sociability of mankind--that is, the combination in them of an impulse to enter into society, with a thorough spirit of opposition which constantly threatens to break up this society. The ground of this lies in human nature. Man has an inclination to enter into society, because in that state he feels that he becomes more a man, or, in other words, that his natural faculties develop. But he has also a great tendency to isolate himself, because he is, at the same time, aware of the unsocial peculiarity of desiring to have everything his own way; and thus, being conscious of an inclination to oppose others, he is naturally led to expect opposition from them.

"Now it is this opposition which awakens all the dormant powers of men, stimulates them to overcome their inclination to be idle, and, spurred by the love of honour, or power, or wealth, to make themselves a place among their fellows, whom they can neither do with, nor do without.

"Thus they make the first steps from brutishness towards culture, of which the social value of man is the measure. Thus all talents become gradually developed, taste is formed, and by continual enlightenment the foundations of a way of thinking are laid, which gradually changes the mere rude capacity of moral perception into determinate practical principles; and thus society, which is originated by a sort of pathological compulsion, becomes metamorphosed into a moral unity." (_Loc. cit_. p. 147.)

"All the culture and art which adorn humanity, the most refined social order, are produced by that unsociability which is compelled by its own existence to discipline itself, and so by enforced art to bring the seeds implanted by nature into full flower." (_Loc. cit_. p. 148.)

In these passages, as in others of this remarkable tract, Kantanticipates the application of the "struggle for existence" topolitics, and indicates the manner in which the evolution of societyhas resulted from the constant attempt of individuals to strain itsbonds. If individuality has no play, society does not advance; ifindividuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.

But when men living in society once become aware that their welfaredepends upon, two opposing tendencies of equal importance--the onerestraining, the other encouraging, individual freedom--thequestion "What are the functions of Government?" is translated intoanother--namely, What ought we men, in our corporate capacity, to do,not only in the way of restraining that free individuality which isinconsistent with the existence of society, but in encouraging thatfree individuality which is essential to the evolution of thesocial organization? The formula which truly defines the function ofGovernment must contain the solution of both the problems involved,and not merely of one of them.

Locke has furnished us with such a formula, in the noblest, and at thesame time briefest, statement of the purpose of Government known tome:--

"THE END OF GOVERNMENT IS THE GOOD OF MANKIND."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Of Civil Government," Sec. 229.]

But the good of mankind is not a something which is absolute andfixed for all men, whatever their capacities or state of civilization.Doubtless it is possible to imagine a true "Civitas Dei," in whichevery man's moral faculty shall be such as leads him to control allthose desires which run counter to the good of mankind, and to cherishonly those which conduce to the welfare of society; and in which everyman's native intellect shall be sufficiently strong, and his culturesufficiently extensive, to enable him to know what he ought to do andto seek after. And, in that blessed State, police will be as much asuperfluity as every other kind of government.

But the eye of man has not beheld that State, and is not likely tobehold it for some time to come. What we do see, in fact, is thatStates are made up of a considerable number of the ignorant andfoolish, a small proportion of genuine knaves, and a sprinkling ofcapable and honest men, by whose efforts the former are kept in areasonable state of guidance, and the latter of repression. And, suchbeing the case, I do not see how any limit whatever can be laid downas to the extent to which, under some circumstances, the action ofGovernment may be rightfully carried.

Was our own Government wrong in suppressing Thuggee in India? If not,would it be wrong in putting down any enthusiast who attempted to setup the worship of Astarte in the Haymarket? Has the State no right toput a stop to gross and open violations of common decency? And ifthe State has, as I believe it has, a perfect right to do all thesethings, are we not bound to admit, with Locke, that it may have aright to interfere with "Popery" and "Atheism," if it be really truethat the practical consequences of such beliefs con be proved tobe injurious to civil society? The question where to draw the linebetween those things with which the State ought, and those with whichit ought not, to interfere, then, is one which must be left to bedecided separately for each individual case. The difficulty whichmeets the statesman is the same as that which meets us all inindividual life, in which our abstract rights are generally clearenough, though it is frequently extremely hard to say at what point itis wise to cease our attempts to enforce them.

The notion that the social body should be organized in such a manneras to advance the welfare of its members, is as old as politicalthought; and the schemes of Plato, More, Robert Owen, St. Simon,Comte, and the modern socialists, bear witness that, in every age, menwhose capacity is of no mean order, and whose desire to benefittheir fellows has rarely been excelled, have been strongly, nay,enthusiastically, convinced that Government may attain its end--thegood of the people--by some more effectual process than the verysimple and easy one of putting its hands in its pockets, and lettingthem alone.

It may be, that all the schemes of social organization which havehitherto been propounded are impracticable follies. But if this be so,the fact proves, not that the idea which underlies them is worthless,but only that the science of politics is in a very rudimentary andimperfect state. Politics, as a science, is not older than astronomy;but though the subject-matter of the latter is vastly less complexthan that of the former, the theory of the moon's motions is not quitesettled yet.

Perhaps it may help us a little way towards getting clearer notions ofwhat the State may and what it may not do, if, assuming the truth ofLocke's maxim that "the end of Government is the good of mankind," weconsider a little what the good, of mankind is.

I take it that the good of mankind means the attainment, by everyman, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing thehappiness of his fellow-men.[1]

If we inquire what kinds of happiness come under this definition, wefind those derived from the sense of security or peace; fromwealth, or commodity, obtained by commerce; from Art--whether itbe architecture, sculpture, painting, music, or literature; fromknowledge, or science; and, finally, from sympathy or friendship. Noman is injured, but the contrary, by peace. No man is any the worseoff because another acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise ofa profession; on the contrary, he cannot have acquired his wealth,except by benefiting others to the full extent of what they consideredto be its value; and his wealth is no more than fairy gold if he doesnot go on benefiting others in the same way. A thousand men may enjoythe pleasure derived from a picture, a symphony, or a poem, withoutlessening the happiness of the most devoted connoisseur. Theinvestigation of nature is an infinite pasture-ground, where allmay graze, and where the more bite, the longer the grass grows, thesweeter is its flavour, and the more it nourishes. If I love a friend,it is no damage to me, but rather a pleasure, if all the world alsolove him and think of him as highly as I do.

It appears to be universally agreed, for the reasons alreadymentioned, that it is unnecessary and undesirable for the Stateto attempt to promote the acquisition of wealth by any directinterference with commerce. But there is no such agreement as to thefurther question whether the State may not promote the acquisition ofwealth by indirect means. For example, may the State make a road, orbuild a harbour, when it is quite clear that by so doing it will openup a productive district, and thereby add enormously to the totalwealth of the community? And if so, may the State, acting for thegeneral good, take charge of the means of communication between itsmembers, or of the postal and telegraph services? I have not yet metwith any valid, argument against the propriety of the State doingwhat our Government does in this matter; except the assumption, whichremains to be proved, that Government will manage these things worsethan private enterprise would do. Nor is there any agreement upon thestill more important question whether the State ought, or ought not,to regulate the distribution of wealth. If it ought not, then alllegislation which regulates inheritance--the statute of Mortmain, andthe like--is wrong in principle; and, when a rich man dies, weought to return to the state of nature, and have a scramble forhis property. If, on the other hand, the authority of the State islegitimately employed in regulating these matters, then it is an openquestion, to be decided entirely by evidence as to what tends tothe highest good of the people, whether we keep our present laws,or whether we modify them. At present the State protects men in thepossession and enjoyment of their property, and defines what thatproperty is. The justification for its so doing is that its actionpromotes the good of the people. If it can be clearly proved that theabolition of property would tend still, more to promote the good ofthe people, the State will have the same justification for abolishingproperty that it now has for maintaining it.

Again, I suppose it is universally agreed that it would be uselessand absurd for the State to attempt to promote friendship and sympathybetween man and man directly. But I see no reason why, if it beotherwise expedient, the State may not do something towards thatend indirectly. For example, I can conceive the existence of anEstablished Church which should be a blessing to the community. AChurch in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to theiteration of abstract propositions in theology, but to the settingbefore men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a placein which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares, shouldfind a moment's rest in the contemplation of the higher life which ispossible for all, though attained by so few; a place in which the manof strife and of business should have time to think how small, afterall, are the rewards he covets compared with peace and charity. Dependupon it, if such a Church existed, no one would seek to disestablishit.

Whatever the State may not do, however, it is universally agreed thatit may take charge of the maintenance of internal and external peace.Even the strongest advocate of administrative nihilism admits thatGovernment may prevent aggression of one man on another. But thisimplies the maintenance of an army and navy, as much as of a body ofpolice; it implies a diplomatic as well as a detective force; and itimplies, further, that the State, as a corporate whole, shall havedistinct and definite views as to its wants, powers, and obligations.

For independent States stand in the same relation to one another asmen in a state of nature, or unlimited freedom. Each endeavours toget all it can, until the inconvenience of the state of war suggestseither the formation of those express contracts we call treaties,or mutual consent to those implied contracts which are expressed byinternational law. The moral rights of a State rest upon the samebasis as those of an individual. If any number of States agree toobserve a common set of international laws, they have, in fact, set upa sovereign authority or supra-national government, the end ofwhich, like that of all governments, is the good of mankind; and thepossession of as much freedom by each State, as is consistent withthe attainment of that end. But there is this difference: that thegovernment thus set up over nations is ideal, and has no concreterepresentative of the sovereign power; whence the only way of settlingany dispute finally is to fight it out. Thus the supra-nationalsociety is continually in danger of returning to the state of nature,in which contracts are void; and the possibility of this contingencyjustifies a government in restricting the liberty of its subjects inmany ways that would otherwise be unjustifiable.

Finally, with respect to the advancement of science and art. I havenever yet had the good fortune to hear any valid reason alleged whythat corporation of individuals we call the State may not do whatvoluntary effort fails in doing, either from want of intelligence orlack of will. And here it cannot be alleged that the action of theState is always hurtful. On the contrary, in every country in Europe,universities, public libraries, picture galleries, museums, andlaboratories, have been established by the State, and have doneinfinite service to the intellectual and moral progress and therefinement of mankind.

A few days ago I received from one of the most eminent members of theInstitut of France a pamphlet entitled "Pourquoi la France n'apas trouve d'hommes superieurs au moment du peril." The writer, M.Pasteur, has no doubt that the cause of the astounding collapse ofhis countrymen is to be sought in the miserable neglect of the higherbranches of culture, which has been one of the many disgraces of theSecond Empire, if not of its predecessors.

Individually, I have no love for academies on the continental model,and still less for the system of decorating men of distinction inscience, letters, or art, with orders and titles, or enriching themwith sinecures. What men of science want is only a fair day's wagesfor more than a fair day's work; and most of us, I suspect, would bewell content if, for our days and nights of unremitting toil, we couldsecure the pay which a first-class Treasury clerk earns without anyobviously trying strain upon his faculties. The sole order of nobilitywhich, in my judgment, becomes a philosopher, is that rank whichhe holds in the estimation of his fellow-workers, who are the onlycompetent judges in such matters. Newton and Cuvier lowered themselveswhen the one accepted an idle knighthood, and the other became abaron of the empire. The great men who went to their graves as MichaelFaraday and George Grote seem to me to have understood the dignity ofknowledge better when they declined all such meretricious trappings.

But it is one thing for the State to appeal to the vanity and ambitionwhich are to be found in philosophical as in other breasts, andanother to offer men who desire to do the hardest of work for the mostmodest of tangible rewards, the means of making themselves useful totheir age and generation. And this is just what the State does when itfounds a public library or museum, or provides the means of scientificresearch by such grants of money as that administered by the RoyalSociety.

It is one thing, again, for the State to take all the higher educationof the nation into its own hands; it is another to stimulate and toaid, while they are yet young and weak, local efforts to the sameend. The Midland Institute, Owens College in Manchester, the newlyinstituted Science College in Newcastle, are all noble products oflocal energy and munificence. But the good they are doing is notlocal--the commonwealth, to its uttermost limits, shares in thebenefits they confer; and I am at a loss to understand upon whatprinciple of equity the State, which admits the principle of paymenton results, refuses to give a fair equivalent for these benefits; oron what principle of justice the State, which admits the obligationof sharing the duty of primary education with a locality, denies theexistence of that obligation when the higher education is in question.

To sum up: If the positive advancement of the peace, wealth, and theintellectual and moral development of its members, are objects whichthe Government, as the representative of the corporate authority ofsociety, may justly strive after, in fulfilment of its end--the goodof mankind; then it is clear that the Government may undertake toeducate the people. For education promotes peace by teaching men therealities of life and the obligations which are involved in the veryexistence of society; it promotes intellectual development, not onlyby training the individual intellect, but by sifting out from themasses of ordinary or inferior capacities, those who are competentto increase the general welfare by occupying higher positions; and,lastly, it promotes morality and refinement, by teaching men todiscipline themselves, and by leading them to see that the highest, asit is the only permanent, content is to be attained, not by grovellingin the rank and steaming valleys of sense, but by continual strivingtowards those high peaks, where, resting in eternal calm, reasondiscerns the undefined but bright ideal of the highest Good--"a cloudby day, a pillar of fire by night."

II.

THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY DO.

An electioneering manifesto would be out of place in the pages of thisReview; but any suspicion that may arise in the mind of the readerthat the following pages partake of that nature, will be dispelled,if he reflect that they cannot be published[1] until after the dayon which the ratepayers of the metropolis will have decided whichcandidates for seats upon the Metropolitan School Board they willtake, and which they will leave.

[Footnote 1: Notwithstanding Mr. Huxley's intentions, the Editor tookupon himself, in what seemed to him to be the public interest, to sendan extract from this article to the newspapers--before the day of theelection of the School Board.--EDITOR of the _Contemporary Review_.]

As one of those candidates, I may be permitted to say, that I feelmuch in the frame of mind of the Irish bricklayer's labourer, who betanother that he could not carry him to the top of the ladder in hishod. The challenged hodman won his wager, but as the stakes werehanded over, the challenger wistfully remarked, "I'd great hopes offalling at the third round from the top." And, in view of the workand the worry which awaits the members of the School Boards, I mustconfess to an occasional ungrateful hope that the friends who aretoiling upwards with me in their hod, may, when they reach "the thirdround from the top," let me fall back into peace and quietness.

But whether fortune befriend me in this rough method, or not, I shouldlike to submit to those of whom I am a potential, but of whom I maynot be an actual, colleague, and to others who may be interested inthis most important problem--how to get the Education Act to workefficiently--some considerations as to what are the duties of themembers of the School Boards, and what are the limits of their power.

I suppose no one will be disposed to dispute the proposition, thatthe prime duty of every member of such a Board is to endeavour toadminister the Act honestly; or in accordance, not only with itsletter, but with its spirit. And if so, it would seem that the firststep towards this very desirable end is, to obtain a clear notion ofwhat that letter signifies, and what that spirit implies; or, inother words, what the clauses of the Act are intended to enjoin and toforbid. So that it is really not admissible, except for factious andabusive purposes, to assume that any one who endeavours to get atthis clear meaning is desirous only of raising quibbles and makingdifficulties.

Reading the Act with this desire to understand it, I find that itsprovisions may be classified, as might naturally be expected, undertwo heads: the one set relating to the subject-matter of education;the other to the establishment, maintenance, and administration of theschools in which that education is to be conducted.

Now it is a most important circumstance, that all the sections of theAct, except four, belong to the latter division; that is, they referto mere matters of administration. The four sections in question arethe seventh, the fourteenth, the sixteenth, and the ninety-seventh. Ofthese, the seventh, the fourteenth, and the ninety-seventh deal withthe subject-matter of education, while the sixteenth defines thenature of the relations which are to exist between the "EducationDepartment" (an euphemism for the future Minister of Education)and the School Boards. It is the sixteenth clause which is the mostimportant, and, in some respects, the most remarkable of all. It runsthus:--

"If the School Board do, or permit, any act in contravention of, or fail to comply with, the regulations, according to which a school provided by them is required by this Act to be conducted, the Education Department may declare the School Board to be, and such Board shall accordingly be deemed to be, a Board in default, and the Education Department may proceed accordingly; and every act, or omission, of any member of the School Board, or manager appointed by them, or any person under the control of the Board, shall be deemed to be _permitted_ by the Board, unless the contrary be proved.

"If any dispute arises as to whether the School Board have done, or permitted, any act in contravention of, or have failed to comply with, the said regulations, _the matter shall be referred to the Education Department, whose decision thereon shall be final_."

It will be observed that this clause gives the Minister of Educationabsolute power over the doings of the School Boards. He is notonly the administrator of the Act, but he is its interpreter. Ihad imagined that on the occurrence of a dispute, not as regards aquestion of pure administration, but as to the meaning of a clause ofthe Act, a case might be taken and referred to a court of justice. ButI am led to believe that the Legislature has, in the present instance,deliberately taken this power out of the hands of the judges andlodged it in those of the Minister of Education, who, in accordancewith our method of making Ministers, will necessarily be a politicalpartisan, and who may be a strong theological sectary into thebargain. And I am informed by members of Parliament who watched theprogress of the Act, that the responsibility for this unusual state ofthings rests, not with the Government, but with the Legislature, whichexhibited a singular disposition to accumulate power in the hands ofthe future Minister of Education, and to evade the more troublesomedifficulties of the education question by leaving them to be settledbetween that Minister and the School Boards.

I express no opinion whether it is, or is not, desirable that suchpowers of controlling all the School Boards in the country should bepossessed by a person who may be, like Mr. Forster, eminently likelyto use these powers justly and wisely, but who also may be quite thereverse. I merely wish to draw attention to the fact that such powersare given to the Minister, whether he be fit or unfit. The extentof these powers becomes apparent when the other sections of the Actreferred to are considered. The fourth clause of the seventh sectionsays:--

"The school shall be conducted in accordance with the conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant."

What these conditions are appears from the following clauses of theninety-seventh section:--

"The conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant shall be those contained in the minutes of the Education Department in force for the time being.... Provided that no such minute of the Education Department, not in force at the time of the passing of this Act, shall be deemed to be in force until it has lain for not less than one month on the table of both Houses of Parliament."

Let us consider how this will work in practice. A school establishedby a School Board may receive support from three sources--from therates, the school fees, and the Parliamentary grant. The latter may beas great as the two former taken together; and as it may be assumed,without much risk of error, that a constant pressure will be exertedby the ratepayers on the members who represent them, to get as muchout of the Government, and as little out of the rates, as possible,the School Boards will have a very strong motive for shaping theeducation they give, as nearly as may be, on the model which theEducation Minister offers for their imitation, and for the copying ofwhich he is prepared to pay.

The Revised Code did not compel any schoolmaster to leave off teachinganything; but, by the very simple process of refusing to pay for manykinds of teaching, it has practically put an end to them. Mr. Forsteris said to be engaged in revising the Revised Code; a successor ofhis may re-revise it--and there will be no sort of check uponthese revisions and counter-revisions, except the possibility of aParliamentary debate, when the revised, or added, minutes are laidupon the table. What chance is there that any such debate will takeplace on a matter of detail relating to elementary education--asubject with which members of the Legislature, having been, for themost part, sent to our public schools thirty years ago, have not theleast practical acquaintance, and for which they care nothing, unlessit derives a political value from its connection with sectarianpolitics?

I cannot but think, then, that the School Boards will have theappearance, but not the reality, of freedom of action, in regard tothe subject-matter of what is commonly called "secular" education.

As respects what is commonly called "religious" education, the powerof the Minister of Education is even more despotic. An interest,almost amounting to pathos, attaches itself, in my mind, to thefrantic exertions which are at present going on in almost every schooldivision, to elect certain candidates whose names have never beforebeen heard of in connection with education, and who are eithersectarian partisans, or nothing. In my own particular division, a bodyorganized _ad hoc_ is moving heaven and earth to get the seven seatsfilled by seven gentlemen, four of whom are good Churchmen, and threeno less good Dissenters. But why should this seven times heated fieryfurnace of theological zeal be so desirous to shed its genial warmthover the London School Board? Can it be that these zealous sectariesmean to evade the solemn pledge given in the Act?

"No religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination shall be taught in the school."

I confess I should have thought it my duty to reject any suchsuggestion, as dishonouring to a number of worthy persons, if it hadnot been for a leading article and some correspondence which appearedin the _Guardian_ of November 9th, 1870.

The _Guardian_ is, as everybody knows, one of the best of the"religious" newspapers; and, personally. I have every reason to speakhighly of the fairness, and indeed kindness, with which the editoris good enough to deal with a writer who must, in many ways, be soobjectionable to him as myself. I quote the following passages from aleading article on a letter of mine, therefore, with all respect, andwith a genuine conviction that the course of conduct advocated by thewriter must appear to him in a very different light from that underwhich I see it:--

"The first of these points is the interpretation which Professor Huxley puts on the 'Cowper-Temple clause.' It is, in fact, that which we foretold some time ago as likely to be forced upon it by those who think with him. The clause itself was one of those compromises which it is very difficult to define or to maintain logically. On the one side was the simple freedom to School Boards to establish what schools they pleased, which Mr. Forster originally gave, but against which the Nonconformists lifted up their voices, because they conceived it likely to give too much power to the Church. On the other side there was the proposition to make the schools secular--intelligible enough, but in the consideration of public opinion simply impossible--and there was the vague impracticable idea, which Mr. Gladstone thoroughly tore to pieces, of enacting that the teaching of all schoolmasters in the new schools should be strictly 'undenominational.' The Cowper-Temple clause was, we repeat, proposed simply to tide over the difficulty. It was to satisfy the Nonconformists and the 'unsectarian,' as distinct from the secular party of the League, by forbidding all distinctive 'catechisms and formularies,' which might have the effect of openly assigning the schools to this or that religious body. It refused, at the same time, to attempt the impossible task of defining what was undenominational; and its author even contended, if we understood him correctly, that it would in no way, even indirectly, interfere with the substantial teaching of any master in any school. This assertion we always believed to be untenable; we could not see how, in the face of this clause, a distinctly denominational tone could be honestly given to schools nominally general. But beyond this mere suggestion of an attempt at a general tone of comprehensiveness in religious teaching it was not intended to go, and only because such was its limitation was it accepted by the Government and by the House.

"But now we are told that it is to be construed as doing precisely that which it refused to do. A 'formulary,' it seems, is a collection of formulas, and formulas are simply propositions of whatever kind touching religious faith. All such propositions, if they cannot be accepted by all Christian denominations, are to be proscribed; and it is added significantly that the Jews also are a denomination, and so that any teaching distinctively Christian is perhaps to be excluded, lest it should interfere with their freedom and rights. Are we then to fall back on the simple reading of the letter of the Bible? No! this, it is granted, would be an 'unworthy pretence.' The teacher is to give 'grammatical, geographical, or historical explanations;' but he is to keep clear of 'theology proper,' because, as Professor Huxley takes great pains to prove, there is no theological teaching which is not opposed by some sect or other, from Roman Catholicism on the one hand to Unitarianism on the other. It was not, perhaps, hard to see that this difficulty would be started; and to those who, like Professor Huxley, look at it theoretically, without much practical experience of schools, it may appear serious or unanswerable. But there is very little in it practically; when it is faced determinately and handled firmly, it will soon shrink into its true dimensions. The class who are least frightened at it are the school-teachers, simply because they know most about it. It is quite clear that the school-managers must be cautioned against allowing their schools to be made places of proselytism: but when this is done, the case is simple enough. Leave the masters under this general understanding to teach freely; if there is ground of complaint, let it be made, but leave the _onus pro-bandi_ on the objectors. For extreme peculiarities of belief or unbelief there is the Conscience Clause; as to the mass of parents, they will be more anxious to have religion taught than afraid of its assuming this or that particular shade. They will trust the school-managers and teachers till they have reason to distrust them, and experience has shown that they may trust them safely enough. Any attempt to throw the burden of making the teaching undenominational upon the managers must be sternly resisted: it is simply evading the intentions of the Act in an elaborate attempt to carry them out. We thank Professor Huxley for the warning. To be forewarned is to be forearmed."

A good deal of light seems to me to be thrown on the practicalsignificance of the opinions expressed in the foregoing extract by thefollowing interesting letter, which appeared in the same paper:--

"Sir,--I venture to send to you the substance of a correspondence with the Education Department upon the question of the lawfulness of religious teaching in rate schools under section 14 (2) of the Act. I asked whether the words 'which is distinctive,' &c., taken grammatically as limiting the prohibition of any religious formulary, might be construed as allowing (subject, however, to the other provisions of the Act) any religious formulary common to any two denominations anywhere in England to be taught in such schools; and if practically the limit could not be so extended, but would have to be fixed according to the special circumstances of each district, then what degree of general acceptance in a district would exempt such a formulary from the prohibition? The answer to this was as follows:--'It was understood, when clause 14 of the Education Act was discussed in the House of Commons, that, according to a well-known rule of interpreting Acts of Parliament, "denomination" must be held to include "denominations." When any dispute is referred to the Education Department under the last paragraph of section 16, it will be dealt with according to the circumstances of the case.'

"Upon my asking further if I might hence infer that the lawfulness of teaching any religious formulary in a rate school would thus depend _exclusively_ on local circumstances, and would accordingly be so decided by the Education Department in case of dispute, I was informed in explanation that 'their lordships'' letter was intended to convey to me that no general rule, beyond that stated in the first paragraph of their letter, could at present be laid down by them; and that their decision in each particular case must depend on the special circumstances accompanying it.

"I think it would appear from this that it may yet be in many cases both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools.

"H.I. Steyning, _November_ 5, 1870."

Of course I do not mean to suggest that the editor of the _Guardian_is bound by the opinions of his correspondent; but I cannot helpthinking that I do not misrepresent him, when I say that he alsothinks "that it may yet be, in many cases, both lawful andexpedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools under thesecircumstances."

It is not uncharitable, therefore, to assume that, the express wordsof the Act of Parliament notwithstanding, all the sectaries who aretoiling so hard for seats in the London School Board have the livelyhope of the gentleman from Steyning, that it may be "both lawful andexpedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools;" andthat they mean to do their utmost to bring this happy consummationabout.[1]

[Footnote 1: A passage in an article on the "Working of the EducationAct," in the _Saturday Review_ for Nov. 19, 1870, completely justifiesthis anticipation of the line of action which the sectaries mean totake. After commending the Liverpool compromise, the writer goes on tosay:--

"If this plan is fairly adopted in Liverpool, the fourteenth clauseof the Act will in effect be restored to its original form, and themajority of the ratepayers in each district be permitted to decide towhat denomination the school shall belong."

In a previous paragraph the writer speaks of a possible "mistrust"of one another by the members of the Board, and seems to anticipate"accusations of dishonesty." If any of the members of the Board adopthis views, I think it highly probable that he may turn out to be atrue prophet.]

Now the pathetic emotion to which I have referred, as accompanying mycontemplations of the violent struggles of so many excellent persons,is caused by the circumstance that, so far as I can judge, theirlabour is in vain.

Supposing that the London School Board contains, as it probably willdo, a majority of sectaries; and that they carry over the heads of aminority, a resolution that certain theological formulas, about whichthey all happen to agree,--say, for example, the doctrine of theTrinity,--shall be taught in the schools. Do they fondly imagine thatthe minority will not at once dispute their interpretation of the Act,and appeal to the Education Department to settle that dispute? And ifso, do they suppose that any Minister of Education, who wants to keephis place, will tighten boundaries which the Legislature has leftloose; and will give a "final decision" which shall be offensive toevery Unitarian and to every Jew in the House of Commons, besidescreating a precedent which will afterwards be used to the injury ofevery Nonconformist? The editor of the _Guardian_ tells his friendssternly to resist every attempt to throw the burden of making theteaching undenominational on the managers, and thanks me for thewarning I have given him. I return the thanks, with interest, for_his_ warning, as to the course the party he represents intendsto pursue, and for enabling me thus to draw public attention to aperfectly constitutional and effectual mode of checkmating them.

And, in truth, it is wonderful to note the surprising entanglementinto which our able editor gets himself in the struggle between hisnative honesty and judgment and the necessities of his party. "Wecould not see," says he, "in the face of this clause how a distinctdenominational tone could be honestly given to schools nominallygeneral." There speaks the honest and clearheaded man. "Any attemptto throw the burden of making the teaching undenominational must besternly resisted." There speaks the advocate holding a brief for hisparty. "Verily," as Trinculo says, "the monster hath two mouths:" theone, the forward mouth, tells us very justly that the teaching cannot"honestly" be "distinctly denominational;" but the other, thebackward mouth, asserts that it must by no manner of means be"undenominational." Putting the two utterances together, I can onlyinterpret them to mean that the teaching is to be "indistinctlydenominational." If the editor of the _Guardian_ had not shown signsof anger at my use of the term "theological fog," I should have beentempted to suppose it must have been what he had in his mind, underthe name of "indistinct denominationalism." But this reading beingplainly inadmissible, I can only imagine that he inculcates theteaching of formulas common to a number of denominations.

But the Education Department has already told the gentleman fromSteyning that any such proceeding will be illegal. "According to awell-known rule of interpreting Acts of Parliament, 'denomination'would be held to include 'denominations.'" In other words, we mustread the Act thus:--

Thus we are really very much indebted to the editor of the _Guardian_and his correspondent. The one has shown us that the sectaries meanto try to get as much denominational teaching as they can agree uponamong themselves, forced into the elementary schools; while the otherhas obtained a formal declaration from the Education Department thatany such attempt will contravene the Act of Parliament, and that,therefore, the unsectarian, law-abiding members of the School Boardsmay safely reckon upon, bringing down upon their opponents the heavyhand of the Minister of Education.[1]

[Footnote 1: Since this paragraph was written, Mr. Forster, inspeaking at the Birkbeck Institution, has removed all doubt as towhat his "final decision" will be in the case of such disputes beingreferred to him:--"I have the fullest confidence that in the readingand explaining of the Bible, what the children will be taught will bethe great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us desirethey should know, and that no effort will be made to cram into theirpoor little minds, theological dogmas which their tender age preventsthem from understanding."]

So much for the powers of the School Boards. Limited as they seem tobe, it by no means follows that such Boards, if they are composed ofintelligent and practical men, really more in earnest about educationthan about sectarian squabbles, may not exert a very great amount ofinfluence. And, from many circumstances, this is especially likely tobe the case with the London School Board, which, if it conducts itselfwisely, may become a true educational parliament, as subordinatein authority to the Minister of Education, theoretically, as theLegislature is to the Crown, and yet, like the Legislature, possessedof great practical authority. And I suppose that no Ministerof Education would be other than glad to have the aid of thedeliberations of such a body, or fail to pay careful attention to itsrecommendations.

What, then, ought to be the nature and scope of the education whicha School Board should endeavour to give to every child under itsinfluence, and for which it should try to obtain the aid of theParliamentary grants? In my judgment it should include at least thefollowing kinds of instruction and of discipline:--

1. Physical training and drill, as part of the regular business of theschool.

It is impossible to insist too much on the importance of this partof education for the children of the poor of great towns. Allthe conditions of their lives are unfavourable to their physicalwell-being. They are badly lodged, badly housed, badly fed, and livefrom one year's end to another in bad air, without chance of a change.They have no play-grounds; they amuse themselves with marbles andchuck-farthing, instead of cricket or hare-and-hounds; and if it werenot for the wonderful instinct which leads all poor children of tenderyears to run under the feet of cab-horses whenever they can, I knownot how they would learn to use their limbs with agility.

Now there is no real difficulty about teaching drill and the simplerkinds of gymnastics. It is done admirably well, for example, in theNorth Surrey Union schools; and a year or two ago, when I had anopportunity of inspecting these schools, I was greatly struck withthe effect of such training upon the poor little waifs and strays ofhumanity, mostly picked out of the gutter, who are being made intocleanly, healthy, and useful members of society in that excellentinstitution.

Whatever doubts people may entertain about the efficacy of naturalselection, there can be none about artificial selection; and thebreeder who should attempt to make, or keep up, a fine stock of pigs,or sheep, under the conditions to which the children of the poorare exposed, would be the laughing-stock even of the bucolic mind.Parliament has already done something in this direction, by decliningto be an accomplice in the asphyxiation of school children. It refusesto make any grant to a school in which the cubical contents of theschool-room are inadequate to allow of proper respiration. I shouldlike to see it make another step in the same direction, and eitherrefuse to give a grant to a school in which physical training is nota part of the programme, or, at any rate, offer to pay upon suchtraining. If something of the kind is not done, the English physique,which has been, and is still, on the whole, a grand one, will becomeas extinct as the dodo, in the great towns.

And then the moral and intellectual effect of drill, as anintroduction to, and aid of, all other sorts of training, must not beoverlooked. If you want to break in a colt, surely the first thing todo is to catch him and get him quietly to face his trainer; to knowhis voice and bear his hand; to learn that colts have something elseto do with their heels than to kick them up whenever they feel soinclined; and to discover that the dreadful human figure has no desireto devour, or even to beat him, but that, in case of attention andobedience, he may hope for patting and even a sieve of oats.

But, your "street Arabs," and other neglected poor children, arerather worse and wilder than colts; for the reason that the horse-colthas only his animal instincts in him, and his mother, the mare, hasbeen always tender over him, and never came home drunk and kicked himin her life; while the man-colt is inspired by that very real devil,perverted manhood, and _his_ mother may have done all that and more.So, on the whole, it may probably be even more expedient to begin yourattempt to get at the higher nature of the child, than at that of thecolt, from the physical side.

2. Next in order to physical training I put the instruction ofchildren, and especially of girls, in the elements of household workand of domestic economy; in the first place for their own sakes, andin the second for that of their future employers.

Everyone who knows anything of the life of the English poor is awareof the misery and waste caused by their want of knowledge of domesticeconomy, and by their lack of habits of frugality and method. Isuppose it is no exaggeration to say that a poor Frenchwoman wouldmake the money which the wife of a poor Englishman spends in foodgo twice as far, and at the same time turn out twice as palatable adinner. Why Englishmen, who are so notoriously fond of good living,should be so helplessly incompetent in the art of cookery, is one ofthe great mysteries of nature; but from the varied abominations ofthe railway refreshment-rooms to the monotonous dinners of the poor,English feeding is either wasteful or nasty, or both.

And as to domestic service, the groans of the housewives of Englandascend to heaven! In five cases out of six, the girl who takes a"place" has to be trained by her mistress in the first rudiments ofdecency and order; and it is a mercy if she does not turn up hernose at anything like the mention of an honest and proper economy.Thousands of young girls are said to starve, or worse, yearly inLondon; and at the same time thousands of mistresses of householdsare ready to pay high wages for a decent housemaid, or cook, or a fairworkwoman; and can by no means get what they want.

Surely, if the elementary schools are worth anything, they may put anend to a state of things which is demoralizing the poor, while it iswasting the lives of those better off in small worries and annoyances.

3. But the boys and girls for whose education the School Boards haveto provide, have not merely to discharge domestic duties, but eachof them is a member of a social and political organization ofgreat complexity, and has, in future life, to fit himself into thatorganization, or be crushed by it. To this end it is surely needful,not only that they should be made acquainted with the elementary lawsof conduct, but that their affections should be trained, so as to lovewith all their hearts that conduct which tends to the attainment ofthe highest good for themselves and their fellow-men, and to hate withall their hearts that opposite course of action which is fraught withevil.

So far as the laws of conduct are determined by the intellect, Iapprehend that they belong to science, and to that part of sciencewhich is called morality. But the engagement of the affections infavour of that particular kind of conduct which we call good, seems tome to be something quite beyond mere science. And I cannot but thinkthat it, together with the awe and reverence, which have no kinshipwith base fear, but arise whenever one tries to pierce below thesurface of things, whether they be material or spiritual, constitutesall that has any unchangeable reality in religion.

And just as I think it would, be a mistake to confound the science,morality, with the affection, religion; so do I conceive it to be amost lamentable and mischievous error, that the science, theology,is so confounded in the minds of many--indeed, I might say, of themajority of men.

I do not express any opinion as to whether theology is a true science,or whether it does not come under the apostolic definition of "sciencefalsely so called;" though I may be permitted to express the beliefthat if the Apostle to whom that much misapplied phrase is duecould make the acquaintance of much of modern theology, he would nothesitate a moment in declaring that it is exactly what he meant thewords to denote.

But it is at any rate conceivable, that the nature of the Deity, andHis relations to the universe, and more especially to mankind, arecapable of being ascertained, either inductively or deductively, orby both processes. And, if they have been ascertained, then a body ofscience has been formed which is very properly called theology.

Further, there can be no doubt that affection for the Being thusdefined and described by theologic science would be properly termedreligion; but it would not be the whole of religion. The affection forthe ethical ideal defined by moral science would claim equal if notsuperior rights. For suppose theology established the existence of anevil deity--and some theologies, even Christian ones, have come verynear this,--is the religious affection to be transferred from theethical ideal to any such omnipotent demon? I trow not. Bettera thousand times that the human race should perish under histhunderbolts than it should say, "Evil, be thou my good."

There is nothing new, that I know of, in this statement of therelations of religion with the science of morality on the one hand andthat of theology on the other. But I believe it to be altogethertrue, and very needful, at this time, to be clearly and emphaticallyrecognized as such, by those who have to deal with the educationquestion.

We are divided into two parties--the advocates of so-called"religious" teaching on the one hand, and those of so-called "secular"teaching on the other. And both parties seem to me to be not onlyhopelessly wrong, but in such a position that if either succeededcompletely, it would discover, before many years were over, thatit had made a great mistake and done serious evil to the cause ofeducation.

For, leaving aside the more far-seeing minority on each side, what the"religious" party is crying for is mere theology, under the nameof religion; while the "secularists" have unwisely and wrongfullyadmitted the assumption of their opponents, and demand the abolitionof all "religious" teaching, when they only want to be free oftheology--Burning your ship to get rid of the cockroaches!

But my belief is, that no human being, and no society composed ofhuman beings, ever did, or ever will, come to much, unless theirconduct was governed and guided by the love of some ethical ideal.Undoubtedly, your gutter child may be converted by mere intellectualdrill into "the subtlest of all the beasts of the field;" but we knowwhat has become of the original of that description, and there isno need to increase the number of those who imitate him successfullywithout being aided by the rates. And if I were compelled to choosefor one of my own children, between a school in which real religiousinstruction is given, and one without it, I should prefer the former,even though the child might have to take a good deal of theology withit. Nine-tenths of a dose of bark is mere half-rotten wood; but oneswallows it for the sake of the particles of quinine, the beneficialeffect of which may be weakened, but is not destroyed, by the woodendilution, unless in a few cases of exceptionally tender stomachs.

Hence, when the great mass of the English people declare that theywant to have the children in the elementary schools taught the Bible,and when it is plain from the terms of the Act, the debates in andout of Parliament, and especially the emphatic declarations ofthe Vice-President of the Council, that it was intended that suchBible-reading should be permitted, unless good cause for prohibitingit could be shown, I do not see what reason there is for opposing thatwish. Certainly, I, individually, could with no shadow of consistencyoppose the teaching of the children of other people to do that whichmy own children are taught to do. And, even if the reading the Biblewere not, as I think it is, consonant with political reason andjustice, and with a desire to act in the spirit of the educationmeasure, I am disposed to think it might still be well to read thatbook in the elementary schools.

I have always been strongly in favour of secular education, in thesense of education without theology; but I must confess I have beenno less seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures thereligious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, was tobe kept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on thesematters, without the use of the Bible. The Pagan moralists lack lifeand colour, and even the noble Stoic, Marcus Antoninus, is too highand refined for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as a whole; make theseverest deductions which fair criticism can dictate for shortcomingsand positive errors; eliminate, as a sensible lay-teacher would do, ifleft to himself, all that it is not desirable for children to occupythemselves with; and there still remains in this old literature a vastresiduum of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the greathistorical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been woveninto the life of all that is best and noblest in English history;that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familiar tonoble and simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Danteand Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblestand purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literaryform; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never lefthis village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries andother civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to thefurthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. By the study ofwhat other book could children be so much humanized and made tofeel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills,like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval betweentwo eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time,according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as they alsoare earning their payment for their work?

On the whole, then, I am in favour of reading the Bible, withsuch grammatical, geographical, and historical explanations by alay-teacher as may be needful, with rigid exclusion of any furthertheological teaching than that contained in the Bible itself. And instating what this is, the teacher would do well not to go beyond theprecise words of the Bible; for if he does, he will, in the firstplace, undertake a task beyond his strength, seeing that all theJewish and Christian sects have been at work upon that subject formore than two thousand years, and have not yet arrived, and are not inthe least likely to arrive, at an agreement; and, in the secondplace, he will certainly begin to teach something distinctivelydenominational, and thereby come into violent collision with the Actof Parliament.

4. The intellectual training to be given in the elementary schoolsmust of course, in the first place, consist in learning to use themeans of acquiring knowledge, or reading, writing, and arithmetic; andit will be a great matter to teach reading so completely that the actshall have become easy and pleasant. If reading remains "hard," thataccomplishment will not be much resorted to for instruction, and stillless for amusement--which last is one of its most valuable uses tohard-worked people.

But along with a due proficiency in the use of the means of learning,a certain amount of knowledge, of intellectual discipline, and ofartistic training should be conveyed in the elementary schools; and inthis direction--for reasons which I am afraid to repeat, havingurged them so often--I can conceive no subject-matter of educationso appropriate and so important as the rudiments of physical science,with drawing, modelling, and singing. Not only would such teachingafford the best possible preparation for the technical schools aboutwhich so much is now said, but the organization for carrying it into